record, and about their civil liberties record that is exactly what the prime minister has been doing this week. >> mr. speaker, i sometimes think the deputy prime minister would like to see me to a jungle in australia for a month. [laughter] but would he agree with me that when two different policies get together in a national interest to clear up the mess that labour -- [shouting] and in particular driving unemployment down, in colby it went down four points 6% last month. >> for the first time in my parliamentary career i wholeheartedly agree with him. [laughter] let us favor and treasure this moment. [laughter] because i suspect it will be very, very rare indeed. but when i heard the honorable member had been sent to a jungle with insects, i thought that

despite the appearance of civility from our new chief whip, this indicates a new disciplinarian approach in the chief whip's office. i agree with and we're doing a great job to go to fix the econ >> next week, members are out for a short autumn recess. question time returns on wednesday, november 21, 20123. watch "any time" at c-span "org where you can find british prime minister's questions and other public affairs programs. >> prime minister david cameron gives a speech at the lord mayor banquet.

>> i enjoy watching book tv and the rebroadcast of various television news programs. c-span provides end-to-end coverage of events and the kind of editing you see from other programs and gives you an opportunity to consume the news and information and make up my own mind about what's going on. c-span is a great way to get a kind of unfiltered view about the day's events. >> c-span created by america's cable companies in 1979, brought to you as a public service by your television provider. >> next, a discussion on the middle east in the aftermath of the arab spring.

>> this was part of a national security council friday. this is an hour.

>> thank you for this stimulating conference so far. like america, i am awash in debt. it is time to make good on those promises. to shibly tilami whom i've had the pleasure of seeing, i'm owing you a way overdue thank you. professor tilami is a distinguished former advisor -- current advisor to many government agencies, u.s. leaders and diplomats, and he is a prolific and best-selling author. let me quote from the top of his web site at the university of maryland where he is the anwar sadat professor of peace. "i have always believed good scholarship can be relevant and

cons consequential for public policy. it is possible to affect public policy without being an advocate. to be passionate about peace without losing analytical power. to be moved by what is just while conceding that no one has a monopoly on justice." i think our other scholars and our world affairs council college shares that sentiment. jinan reed is a associate professor of sociology and health at duke university, she's a carnegie scholar and an associate director. she is half libyan, spent much of her childhood in libya, and thanks to the arab spring she has had a touching and moving reunion with her father after many, many years. i owe you great thanks for a zesty presentation two months ago, and of course, we won't go

into it, but i also owe you dinner. professor mark lynch is not here yet, so i owe mark great gratitude for giving me the opportunity to give a life-long dream and be clint eastwood. in march of 2011 the state department sent t.j. where we had the privilege of having events at boston university, emer son college, and we threw a fine lunchon where he wowed our crowd. and m.i.t. which he was not responsible for that part of his itinerary. over the weekend i'm driving in new england and listening to

n.p.r., state department spokesman t.j. crowley has just resigned. on monday morning i had so many calls and e-mails, what did i miss by not going to that lunch? he is a man of great candor and principle. he got in trouble for saying something about the treatment of private bradmauning, the wikileaks thing, and i owe you all a great thanks for being here today. f. >> thank you. [applause] >> i resigned two hours after the tour. i don't want you to take that personally. so we are coming up on the two-year anniversary of this thing called the arab spring or the asia wakening, or the arab uprising. so from almost two years when a fruit vendor in tunisia lit

himself on fire and has literally changed the region. what is this about and what has happened? >> so our comments today are going to be a little bit from the academic side, also a little from the personal side. i am half libyan and i spent 15 years in benghazi and also in alexandria egypt. my opinions in what was happening in the last two years is somewhat in comparison to what was happening in 1978 when i was there. what we are seeing now is that the u.s. has very little to do with what happened there. that the uprisings were very much from within and were very much about the economic devastation that many of the countries have experienced, and it was very much a grassroots

movement. that means a signal of hope that this was something from the people themselves and not something imposed on them from outside. now i think we are a little impatient. it has only been two years. these countries have their own unique problems that we will talk about, but i think it has been two years. in the case of libya, it has been over four decades of stagnation. so expectations should be moderated based on the fact that this is a process >> let me just address this by answering the question, why were so many people surprised by the uprising and use that as an understanding of what is actually going on. we weren't actually surprised that the public -- this is

something, every year by 10 years i say the gab is only growing, and the only question is not whether people have reasons to revolt but why haven't they revolted already? we knew there were economic problems, there were frustrations, there was no transparancy, there was corruption. the government stood for one thing, the people stood for another thing. in egypt, in the monthly raids you have, you are an eegyptian, meaning, they were not proud of the government's representation of the people. so the question is, what happened? this was true for a decade, there was nothing particularly unique about 2007, 2011 as you say. this was a major economic crisis that really was so extraordinary

that it propelled people to do something they didn't do five years before. i don't think you can just blame it on economics. i think the right answer is, look, we had three political pundits that always assume that it is not enough for people to want to revolt. you have to organize. the government has to feel the need. so the fact you have a lot of angry people doesn't quite make it. government understand that you can't get people into the streets without organizing. they pre-empted organizations. they outlawed political bodies. they kept tabs on social institutions. they put leaders in prison that challenge thesm they were under control. that's why you have a l -- have a lot of people -- so what happened over the past couple years, something we have been watching for a decade but we didn't fully understand is that the information revolution has

actually enable people to turn out in large numbers without traditional organizations of political parties or charismatic groups. so when you get a million people into the streets, you really have a force for change. so the real issue is not why people revolted. there are a whole set of reasons to it. but the reason they were table to do it is in large part by the information revolution. certainly you understand the impact of television. they are falling on the internet, how many people use television. expansion has been unbelievable. you can see the difference and the consequences of that. that tells me, by the way, that when people ask what is going on

here in the middle east? every country has its own set of responses, we don't know how it is all going to turn out. but we do know one thing. we have public empowerment in the world. it is only going to move forward. that is, as i mention, the power of the public, that is going to force politics in every country and every government no matter the differences among them. >> certainly when you think about tunisia and egypt, two of the most connected societies in the middle east from the immediate standpoint, it is not surprising that it started there, but what about yemen? one -- >> go ahead.

>> yemen surprisingly is well connected. one of the surprises, even a dozen years ago when i was out there for a conference, when there was internet all over the arab world, and i was still using aol, you know, the old dial-up? someone had a local number to a ol to dial up. i say that because when you get -- there is something called an arab uprising or asia wakening or arab empowerment. i think yes it started in tune eeshia and -- tunisia and egypt. they had the power of communicating because you didn't need a lot of people in some ways to use the internet because when you have one person getting

a picture and then one person is commune -- communicating or even tweeting, it is the mixture of the social media and the satellite television. in the past decade when you look at where we started, the late 1990's to have very little viewership like in north africa, by last year, half of the arab public said what was the first choice? and another said -- 20 to 30% said al jazeera was the second choice for news. that has been the story of the decade. >> let's start going through. tunisia. good news story so far so good?

>> yes. >> it is one thing to be an opposition lead are for -- -- leader for some time, you see how he's done in the first two weeks in office. how the muslim brotherhood of power plays out. >> i know there are people frustrated who expected quick

transformation of the country, whether the economy is difficult. >> to me it has been kind of a miracle that it has been relatively stable, that it has been relatively absent of violence. those things hold promise. there are problems. we know that when the revolution started in tunisia and egypt, then we -- people saying well in places like syria, you have divided communities, divided societies, where in europe -- tunisia you have different

groups. in egypt when they had the parliamentary election people assumed that there was prince reply -- support in groups. they did. they controlled most of the policies. well, wip a few months, what do we have? we have even though 46% turned out for that election, remarkably, and the muslim brotherhood has been good in turning out people. their candidates get only 1/4 of the vote. then if you have the final round , the two plrks it was so close we didn't know the results. so egypt is divided somewhat.

the brotherhood after the parliamentary election, they have carte plan much, but they discovered they don't. they have been sending in pressure from the right. the writing of these institutions. today, as we speak, in tahrir square there are smowsu thousands of people demonstrating. going for essentially more specific reference to the sharia religious law in the constitution where there is a deal where more moderates are -- some of the liberals. it is a work in progress. the constitutional issue is the most important issue they are

facing, even more than the economy. >> we welcome mark lynch from george washington university. we will give him a chance to catch his breath. >> one country that is pro american in the riege -- region today, and yet also the country where there was an attack on our diplomatic outpost in ben -- benghazi. >> one thing important to know about libya is that even though in terms of its size, land mass, it looks a lot like egypt, in terms of actual population it is a very small country. an eight-hour drive within each other. getting back to the information age, the younger kids are all

very well connected. there is still a lack of organized information among libyans themselves. for example my father was a half a mile away from the embassies when this happened. he hadn't a clue. no one knew what was going on. all they could hear was the gunfire. it was almost half a day later when they found out what was happening. so there was still a lack of organized information. there is also a lot of mistrust of the leaders. there are still a lot of factions among the leaders of the libyan government. this gets back to the 40 years. then he would have police come and get you and ask you to watch on their public television, the hanging on the town square, you would watch them take the body in the helicopter and deliver it

to the scene. this is an underlying fear about what the information is that they are feeding and that they can druft -- trust it. >> and they are heavily armed. >> and the other problem is there are a lot of arms left over in the homes of people. when i speak to my family there, they say there are a bunch of thugs that have these weapons, and we want to be rid of them. they do not want sha rea -- sharia law, they do not want to go the way of egypt. it is true they are very pro-western despite what we saw happen in september and despite the fact that in the mid 19 -- 1980's, the united states bombed, and that is still very much in the forefront of libyans' minds.

>> so in creating a special narrative about what happened in the region, in creating consistent policies across the region, is it possible to have a broader coherence when, for example, the president says identify with the aspirations of the egyptian people, but what about bahrain? we invoke a responsibility to protect the libyan people, but what about the syrian people? what does this mean to u.s. interests in the short term and u.s. presence and interests in the longer term? >> the short answer is, no, there is no such thing as consistency, that's not the way it works. i suspect a slightly longer answer would be, there are big changes we have begun to recognize. i think the administration has

been good in recognizing them. i think it is going to be increasingly institutionized. one of those is that for a long time there was a bipartisan situation that we would rather deal with the messiness of democracy. so every administration talks about democracy, but none of them really wanted it. what they wanted were friends that would be slightly nicer, more stable, more legitimate. but every time an administration was faced with a choice whether to push for real democracy which might empoir the people which might be hostile or difficult to deal with, they always chose the dictator over the people. i think that idea that we have that choice is simply gone. i think we haven't quite caught up with the realts, and the oil producing states of the gulf.

but the idea we can make that choice anymore is simply gone. you listen to the debates in the united states about should we have let egypt happen? why did we do this to egypt? and this is ridiculous. there were millions tf people on the streets at the end of january. every police station at alexandria had been burned down. we didn't make it happen, we couldn't have stopped it if we wanted to, and the recognition of that fact, i think is really important. .

we see the saudi opposition to democratic change in there, and we realize we cannot stop it and back away. you understand why they did.

in libya, frankly, there is an easy opportunity to do a significant amount to stop an impending massacre and to broker real change without putting troops on the ground. geographic division, being right there at the ocean. syriac is a horrible problem, but it is too difficult for the united states to easily solved. that is how i would answer that very big question. >> just picking up on what you just said, marc, about the united states, trying to control the region, and the discussion of the wall of the united states as a world leader, -- the wall -- role of the united states as

a world leader, and if you think back, the french would not allow the united states to fly over their airspace over the situation with tripoli. there was unrest between the united states and france. and, you know, fast forward, and the united states was not the driver. >> if i may on this one, they understood this is not about america, and it should not be made about america. the situation with tripoli. america could not changed the course of history. but beyond that, every situation presented a different situation.

this was beyond the consequences. syria has consequences for almost all of the neighbor is the for the first time in history, you have all of the arab rulers -- this guy named muammar gaddafi should go, and you had the u.n. security council resolution. those two are huge. it is, particularly when you are looking for legitimacy. -- it is hard, particularly when you are looking for legitimacy. the one thing we need to be careful about though is the conclusion that we have and grace democratic change and it is irreversible. which we have been braced -- the conclusion that we have been braced democratic change -- we have embraced democratic change.

particularly after each. tahrir square. that was very different from the 9/11 paradigm. when you ask the american public's -- public is the uprising in the arab world driven by people looking for democracy or by arab groups, many square. people said it was ordinarily -- ordinary people like them. are they favorable or unfavorable, many had favorable reviews of the arab and muslim people. 70% expressed -- that has changed over the past year. what we see is really a change

where you have more people saying the arab uprisings are more about people try to take control. now, there are 50%/50%, favorables/unfavorables -- favorable/unfavorable. some say the clash -- the majority are saying no. still, a slight majority of americans supports democratic change, even if it leads to governments that are not friendly to the united states, although there is a big divide

between republicans and democrats. transformation of public opinion is a function of what is happening in the middle east, that leads you to believe that we certainly could have politicians exploited in a different direction. >> pew did a survey in april 2011 and another in october, and they found a 30-point drop of americans saying that changes in the middle east will lead to lasting changes in people's lives. the percentage of americans who thought what was going on in the united states -- what was going on in the middle east was good for the united states, as 13%. >> the way americans define democracy will never look like that in the arab world.

expecting it to follow, it will never happen. democracy needs to change. >> but my point, fundamentally, on this is that really big change, cognitive change that has to happen for americans is to understand that they are not waiting for an american permission slip. they just are not. they do not care -- we are not leading it, and we should not be leading it. we can sell arms to the government and protect them from international interests, and i think it is a bad idea, but we can do it. i do not think -- now, some of our closest friends in the region, in the case of kuwait,

other than being invaded -- and jordan is not doing much better. i think we're going to have some very serious challenges very soon, and we have to decide where we stand on that. >> we will take questions coming up. about syria. what are the implications of this grind that we see every day? obviously, jordan is dealing with a significant refugee population, as is turkey. turkey has exchanged fire with syria now and again. you have got hands in the cookie jar. the saudis and iranians and others.

one of the implications, the longer this goes, what do you see as the scenario for a syriac in the next year or so, and what can the united states to -- this an area -- the scenario for syria in the next year or so, and what can the united states do? >> there is a belief that we were aggressive because of the oil and because it was in our interest to help. moving forward at least, we have to consider, at least among some factions -- then we are not going to act. >> on this one, i am not sure i

really agree. let's say we act tomorrow. some ins say we have pure reasons for acting -- some imperial reasons for acting. obviously, we are constrained, and our cooperation with syria will be read differently. i just do not see it. when i watch all of the casualties, it has been a painful thing to watch. let's face it. this is not just about american international policy. it is a failed system. there is a global revolution. people watch this, and our expectations.

-- people watch this and have expectations. we have no way of dealing with it. it is a failure of the international system, but, still, if you look in the arab world, a majority sympathizes, but if you ask them if they want to see western intervention in syria, the majority say no, so they want something done. they do not know exactly what it is, but they do not want to see a military intervention, and this is big for the administration because you do not know what the morning after will be. you see the divided opposition yesterday. as you know, the secretary tried to help forge a different coalition in qatar. it did not quite work.

you see the people who are armed and fighting up in the north. they are of concern to the u.s. when you look at the consequences for russia, this is not just a regional question. it is about the relationship with another superpower, with the u.n. i am sure that a good percentage of the people here, when bush acted to go to war without a un resolution, they were very uneasy, but now, we find people saying, "maybe obama should do it," for different reasons. it is not tied to the election. the election is not going to solve the problem for them. >> let me also say i agree, 100%. do not get me wrong. i do not think that us going in and invading is going to change

perceptions. either way, there is going to be these perceptions. helping syria is by no means going to change the perception that we helped some countries because of resources versus others -- that we help some countries because of resources versus others. >> i see no such trend in the country. i just do not see any public support for it. i think shibley has got it right. intervention would make things worse for syria and for us. you ask what is going to look like in a year, and i push it out five years. i think we are looking at a civil war. every player in the region. right now, what you have got is what started as a peaceful uprising has now been

transformed into an insurgency and, you know, basically every player, the saudis, the turks, others, they are funding and fueling their own gangs, and they are fighting. there is no easy answer. >> assad? >> i do not think it matters if he is in power or not. for the sake of argument, i think the administration was doing the right thing over this spring in the summer, trying to use kofi annan and united nations to broker a transition. this was the only possible way to deal with the day-after problem, what does serious look like after -- what does syria look like after. representatives of the opposition. they got rid of assad and

established a six-point plan to move towards a transition. that failed. it was the right thing to do, but it failed, and there is a new u.n. representative out there trying, but right now, there are no prospects for a political verizon, and that means we have seen this rapid descent -- no prospects for a political horizon, and that is why i am pessimistic. i just do not see any limited way that the u.s. could tip the balance. simply are mainly in surgeons just -- purse -- simply are ming the insurgents -- simply arming the insurgents does not help.

>> who might be willing to take him, a? i can think of one place may be. what would the russians and the chinese say or do? would they be willing to collaborate on that? and what if it did become a possibility? -- what you just said, marc lynch, in making any kind of change, if we are going to continue to have this ongoing problem with different factions? >> he would have to go somewhere that is not a signatory to the international criminal court. he could come to washington. [laughter]

more than likely, he would have to go to moscow or someplace like that. allow the beginning of a political transition. let's be perfectly honest. the possibility of reconciling the various factions inside syria is infinitely lower than it was that when kofi annan was working on a plan. -- than when kofi annan was working on a plan. i would like to see him indicted at the hague. it is impossible for him to have impunity for the atrocities that were carried out there. >> back in the back. >> hello, i am from the world affairs council of new hampshire. i have a question about citizens knowing about the different cultures and government practices in each country.

being a student, i talked to a lot of people from the middle east, and they told me that they do not understand how the government works in the u.s. and vice versa. >> i think that could be said about a lot of americans who do not know how the government works. >> the world is now learning about the electoral college and is as confused as most americans. >> i can tell you i just returned from one week of lecturing in saudi arabia, and the subject of all of my lectures across the country with the exception of one were about our elections. there was tremendous in strip -- interest in that. i think it is true. if you look at the media here,

for several days, all of the major satellites, the egyptian tv, they were all doing shows continuously. they had election returns. six hours of election returns on aljazeera. i spent my evenings there, learning about who had won the election. so, yes, there was a lot of interest in that, and you are right, not a lot of people know about it. one of the problems we had after 9/11, at the very same time we were needing more and more interactions, whether students or businesses, we had more restrictions that made it more difficult because of the security issues, and i think it is time to revisit that.

>> i did an aljazeera english interview. they asked about whether the election was based along racial lines, for example, because they said different subgroups disproportionately 21 group or another -- went to one group or another. one minority candidate defeated another minority candidate, and the election was largely about the economy and really not about race or religion, and that is a difficult concept for some others as they look at ours. >> i am with one of the sponsors, northrop grumman. i am curious because i lived in syria. when there is a lot of discussion about things breaking down into sectarianism, i do not

see any mention of the fact that syria has probably the largest christian population in the middle east, something like 20% to 30%. ok. my figures are dated. anyway, i am curious why this is not discussed, and if you would comment on the role of the christian community in syria and how you see that playing out -- thank you. >> i mean, i do not think we are hearing a lot right now about the differences between the moslems and christians, because that is not a pressing problem in syria, and getting back to a comment earlier about it spilling over into the rest of the region, -- they are now all in turkey, try to help the turks get assad out. getting him out with goes a long

way to add least getting some other resources -- getting him out would go a long way to at least getting some other resources redirected. >> they saw what happened in iraq, where the cristian -- christian trinity was largely wiped out after the fall of saddam -- whether christian community was largely wiped out after the fall of -- where the christian community was largely wiped out after the fall of saddam. the way syria was covered early on, the assumption was that this was a unified people and against simply one man, this one-persian regime -- this one-person regime. there is a portion of the population that continues to support the regime, terrified of

the future, having shifted from a peaceful protest to an all-out war. many have gone back to the regime, and that is one of the deeply complicated parts of this. you cannot assume that all of the syrian people are united against assad. that is not the way it looks on the ground. >> obviously, iraq has generated that kind of fear, but you have to look at the kind of history. the secular arab nationalism. from the very inception of it in the 1930's and 1940's, the forces that rallied behind it, minorities that included christians and others, as well as sunni moslems. there is that coalition, which i think is still there in syria,

and each community is divided, but there is a lot of fear of the consequences because of the unknown. >> back to the issue of what the united states can do, in terms of perceptions of winners and losers in the past few years, women have been significant losers, starting in iraq and threw out other countries. what can the united states do in terms of state -- starting in iraq and the throughout the other countries. what can the united states do in terms of this? that is not their first inclination. >> it is suggested the united states should not really do much, because the women in the united states that are pro gender equality do not

appreciate what it looks like to be gender equal -- do not appreciate when people start telling them what it looks like to be gender equal. >> the story recently in tahrir square, where there are vigilante groups taking their own action to protect women from harassment, does this have to come from within? >> indonesia, for example, just to give you an example of what happened -- in tunisia, just to give you an example of what happened there, when you look at a loss that they passed for the election, the election laws -- when you look at bill laws -- at the laws that they pass for the

election, the election laws, you have more women -- that they passed for the election, the election laws, you have more women. they have a larger representation. they are still debating the constitution. we will see how that works out. but there is a forest. i agree with the idea that it is not up to us -- but there is a force. i agree with the idea that it is not up to us. the shia are only about 10% of the population. what is happening is the connectivity of the young people. women, more than half of the college students in saudi arabia

are women. i went to a women's college in saudi arabia. the women are all connected. they tweet about all kinds of issues, global issues, including asking questions about the royal family. there is empowerment. it will vary from country to country, but it will not be up to us. >> you do not have to worry about it as much as the perception in the middle east. one thing that gaddafi promoted was gender equality, so you had women -- the gender issue was never as big of a problem in libya acid has been and continues to be in some parts of the middle east -- was never as big of a problem in libya as it has been and continues to be in some other parts of the middle

east. >> from st. john's college in santa fe, new mexico, my question is -- i am interesting -- interested in it if in the arab spring, it is more united, -- my question is, what i am interested in is if the arabs spring is more united -- the arab spring, if it is more united. >> world affairs forum from stanford, connecticut. one man spoke a little while ago in new york, and he made a couple of major points, one of which was the need for the growth of the spirit of pluralism across the middle

east. when he was asked what the seeds of that growth would be a -- would be, it was that americans would not have much to do in creating or fostering it. i would ask this panel, are their seeds of growth of political pluralism -- are there seeds? or is the question not so relevant? >> marc, you said in the book is a different phenomenon. because of the connectivity that shibley talked about, people can respond in real time -- >> starting with aljazeera and moving through social media, twitter, that sort of thing, greater connectivity between

arabs spread out than there probably has been in history. january through march last year was probably the highest level of intense identification and interaction in arab history, except maybe a few years back in the 1950's. if you watch aljazeera back in february, and they would show the split-screen images, and you would have the protesters marching at the same time live, chanting the same slogans, holding up the same signs in different cities simultaneously, and they would show different cities and the same thing, and that was really unprecedented. i do think that momentum and communication has broken down a bit since march. egyptians are consumed with

egyptian politics. two nations -- others are concerned with their own. it is not nearly as intense. it is not manifesting in quite the same way now. the other part of it is bad things spread. i saw a survey not too long ago showing there are higher numbers of egyptians that say that shia should not be considered -- most egyptians probably have not seen a shia in their lives. sectarianism is also being spread through the media channels. >> i think on the unification issue, i agree that there is diversity. libya, tunisia, focusing on

local issues, but how they identify themselves is still interesting. only about one-third across the board identify with the state as their first identity. even muslim, it is really muslim-arab. when you ask them if the state should serve the interests, you say -- you have a large chunk saying -- but politically, it is fascinating. we are focused -- it is a revolutionary time. it has been a very fascinating story. egypt is still going through a time. it needs help from the rest of the war, particularly economically.

-- it needs help from the rest of the world. particularly economically. that leaves the gulf cooperation led by saudi arabia. what we have now is really an interesting political dominance in the arab world. this is around saudi arabia, that invited two other states into the oil club in exchange for economic and other cooperation. that is the coalition right now that is the powerful coalition in the arab world, and the states that are going through change are somewhat marginalized, so go ahead. >> egypt will come back. >> and in terms of identity politics, you get to a country like libya.

yemen. >> exactly, and there are two things going on, paradoxically. there is also within the country divisions that are continuing. i was in egypt last august during ramadan with my family, and it was almost like a soap opera. there was a fever. people could almost not wait. i think you have got those going on at the same time. this has overgeneralized the pan-arab identity, as marc mentioned. >> 201 and 301.

thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> now, a look at afghanistan and pakistan from today's "washington journal." host: joining us is a news director for the associated press, joining us in kabul. thank you for joining us. guest coast -- guest: thank you. host: it is not a stable country, with at least 20 people killed, but if you look at the country you are now living in and covering for the associated press, what parts are stable, if any? >> there are parts of afghanistan that are stable. guest: there are -- guest: there

are parts of afghanistan that are stable. eastern afghanistan is a different story. there is a lot going on along the pakistani border. we get back to the main point, which is how easy is it for afghans to move around, it is not that good. afghans cannot fully travel from kabul to canada are -- to kandahar. there is a stable government, but it is far from being a success story. host: and what about pakistan's role in all of this? guest: providing a safe haven

for some. pakistan also realizes that after 2014, when those combat troops leave the country, they cannot afford to have an unstable afghanistan. the taliban or others that are fighting in pakistan. they will find safe havens in afghanistan, pakistan does not really want an unstable afghanistan post 2014. we have seen some attempts being made by the government to try to find a way to get the peace talks going again. the high peace council, to try to find some reconciliation, delegations going to pakistan to talk to the pakistani government, mostly leaders -- a

couple of them -- so pakistan will play a very big role in post 2014 stability. host: the latest figures published in "the washington post." killing american soldiers -- has anything changed in the last couple of months in terms of security? guest: they have taken steps to control these attacks. to varying degrees of success, they have established programs, looking over fellow soldiers as

they are sleeping -- this is not something that will go away. let's not forget that big american government spent billions of dollars rowing the afghan national security forces from about 70,000 a few years ago. this has been one of the largest source of military recruitment training programs that the world has ever seen. the government spent building its -- spent billions in 2010 and 2011. it is not unnatural to see these attacks. the afghan government has taken steps to find ways to prevent this from happening, but it is unavoidable. we have had about 42 attacks.

just yesterday, two spanish soldiers were wounded by two afghan national soldiers who fired on them. so this is something that is quite worrisome. you have got not only insurgents to worry about, but you also have this entire problem inside the afghan army. guest: i want to include with this -- to conclude with this tweet. how do you respond to our american presence in afghanistan and what role we may have played in the violence going on in the country? guest: the taliban has said that if the forces left, the taliban

-- it would stop, because there would be no one left to attack. it is not just the u.s. military or the nato military. let's not forget that the afghan army and the afghan government is also fighting the insurgency. if they all left tomorrow, does that mean that the taliban would stop fighting the afghan government? i sincerely doubt that, unless there is some kind of a peace process that leads to some kind of reconciliation. i do not think they will give up fighting just because the foreign troops are gone. host: joining us live from kabul, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. -- guest: thank you. >> coming up, we will talk about the future of the republican party. after that, a look at the voting

trend in the election. tomorrow, a musician and activist, bono. watch this event live at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> 2013 should be the year we and i to solve our debt, am proposing we can avert the fiscal cliff together in a manner that ensures that 2013 is finally the year that our government comes to grips with the major problems that are facing us. >> i am open to new ideas. i am committed to solving our fiscal challenges. but i refuse to accept any approach that is not balanced. i am not going to ask students

and seniors and middle-class families to pay down the entire deficit while people like me making over $250,000 are not asked to pay a dime more in taxes. >> the current congress still has work to do through the end of the year in typically what is referred to as the lame duck session. work will be on the expiration of the bush tax cuts and the debt ceiling and planned cuts as and to domestic and military spending, also known as sequestration. follow the debates with live house coverage on c-span and the senate on c-span2. >> now, a discussion on the future of the democratic party. from "washington journal," this is 45 minutes. host: karl rove still resolute in defeat. a former chair of the --

host: my hero. my mentor. dick morris is a close contender. i think karl rove has earned the title of the biggest horse's ass. he has taken credit military spr reelecting george bush. he did not. the supreme court did. he has been wrong about everything. he spent $300 million this year of other people's money, by the way. we do not know how much money karl rove made for that deal. in the nine senate races, he got one. he spent maybe $170 million of

that for mitt romney against barack obama, and then on election night, he tried to recreate florida again by insisting that the network, fox, was wrong in calling the election for obama. the fox number-cruncher's said, "no, you are wrong." -- the fox number-crunchers said, "no, you are wrong." i think his career in politics should be over, and show -- and so should dick morris's. he is getting all of these people's money, spending it for mitt romney, and then he is on fox news as a supposedly independent political commentator, and he is writing a column for rupert murdoch's " wall street journal." host: and on the lecture circuit.

guest: his time in american politics has come and gone. host: our guest is bill press. bill press. onawful election night proved you cannot buy momentum." guest: karl rove at one time talked about a total realignment, and in this one

again, the republicans lost the white house. two elections in a row. they lost ground in the senate. they lost ground in the house. and then you have karl rove with this rosy look on his face saying, "we won." he said, "we had a good night." who believes that other than karl rove? they do need to do some real soul-searching. karl rove will not get there because he refuses to accept reality. host: from "the washington post" today -- from "the washington post" today -- doubts plague the gop. guest: i would be willing --

$10,000. when$10,000. when you look out at a party, if you are a republican party leader, and if you look out at the party, and president obama got 55% of the female vote, 71% of the latino vote, a 60% of the vote of young people, and mitt romney got one constituency, young males, then you have a party that is not resonating with the 21st century people. host: from the weekly standard, when at the party, males, then you havea party that is not resonating with the 21st century people. host: from the weekly standard, when john kerry lost to president bush, winning by a margin of victory of 2.4%, saying that we had a week challenger, both -- we had a weak challenger -- guest: that does not surprise me.

the republicans nominated him, and they stood behind him, and they insisted he was the answer to prayers. obviously, he did not deliver. they did not have any choice. who would have done better? michele bachmann? herman cain? david petraeus as did not kerryo president bush, run -- david petraeus did not run. we will talk about him later. host: back in 1984 -- guest: the republican party in

california is a mirror of the party, and a sense that they lost track of where the country was moving. it was their extreme right wing philosophy and policies which do not match. host: why is that a mirror image of what we are dealing with today? guest: we have had a hard time convincing latinos to register and to vote. an anti-immigration initiative

on the ballot. they registered, and now they are a power in california, as they are in other states. you go out and you oppose the dream backact. -- opposed the dream act -- mitt romney saying people should self-deport, sell their house and go back to mexico? you cannot win latino votes when you make war against them. host: one supporting mitt romney in this election said they need to go after hispanic support in 2016. guest: i once thought that man

you mentioned was one of the rising stars. when he left the party, i did not buy his reasons for doing so. i did not think republicans should write off the african americans at all. talking about improving this economy, and if they are willing to say medicare and social security are going to stay, they can certainly get african- american votes. to write them off, as suggested, i think would be a mistake. host: you can send us an email or join us on facebook or twitter. what surprised you about the election tuesday? guest: what surprised me was the obama victory. 5% of the people that are

independent voters. i think it was a very decisive victory. and all of those stories we were reflecting on before hand, that this would take months to figure out, this will go to the house of representatives, president obama won the electoral vote. pretty solid. he won the popular vote, which is decisive. he won eight out of nine of the battleground states that we were told they were so close, they could have gone to mitt romney. host: where the polls wrong? what is going on? -- were the polls wrong? what is going on? guest: every night on the news,

what led the news. -- what led the news? the latest gallup poll. they have not been right since they were wrong in 1946. i must say, nate got it right on the blog. host: good morning. caller: i noticed throughout the campaigning that republican politicians have like complete contempt for the republican voter.

mitt romney went to ohio and told a horrible, embarrassing lie. that tells me that they feel the republican voter is someone to be led by the nose, who can be manipulated, who can be fooled. is that what mitt romney did so poorly? host: thank you. guest: i do not think they were taking the republican voters for granted. i think they failed to reach beyond the republican base, the way i saw it. what mitt romney and paul ryan were doing was to shore up the republican base. the idea in the 21st century anybody would spend any time trying to determine -- and paul ryan is a part of that -- when

is a rape ok, and when is rape not ok? someone said the next time they heard a republican questioning something about rape, i want to cut their tongue out. the conversation last night, he had to say that, because he could not eliminate his base. so i guess, the long answer, my point is that they spent too much time cobbling and shoring up their base and not enough time -- cobbling -- coddling and shoring up their base and not enough time elsewhere. they had the edge going into this election, and they blew it. host: calling the pollsters

shysters. guest: some of them i would not trust on anything. host: let's go to pennsylvania. independent line, good morning. caller: if you could elaborate on two things. some schools have come out with studies that say if you watch fox news, you are less informed than somebody who does not even watch the news, and secondly -- and that is the results of this study. and secondly, when john boehner says the american people do not want tax increases, if you could remind folks that the house numbers for the democrats out way -- outweigh -- all of the people who won on the democratic

side, they were outvoted by half of 1 million voters. guest: -- host: thank you. guest: i think they live in a parallel universe and are often ill informed on the news. but on the second point, john boehner always says the american people do not want anybody's taxes to go up. i do not know what he bases that on. here we go back to the polls again, but every survey or poll that i have seen among democrats and republicans, the american people think that the wealthiest have had a good free ride for 10 years and should go back to paying their fair share. i do not know where john boehner gets that. gets that.